This Week’s Shadow President Power Rankings

A few things have become very clear about Donald Trump’s White House. One, for an administration that claims to hate the press, they all sure do talk to them a whole bunch. And two, Donald Trump is an idiot who allows countless aides and staffers to manipulate his already-bad instincts to serve their own often-evil ends. So we figured we should start keeping track of all of them for one simple goal: to figure out who is actually in charge, since it seems to change every week. Without further ado, we present the latest edition of GQ’s Shadow President Rankings.

No. 1

Steve Bannon

Last week: 1

Our reigning champ cajoled his shouty marionette into signing an executive order that gives Bannon the power to do away with any agency or program that he doesn’t care for, all in the name of “efficiency.” While Donald Trump is out here grinning his way through a dumb St. Patrick’s Day lunch, Steve Bannon is burrowed away somewhere molding the apparatus of the United States government to his cryptofacist vision for the future. As shadow president accomplishments go, it’s really hard to top that. [Somewhere, a furious Dick Cheney frowns even more deeply usual, pissed he never thought of that.]

No. 2

Vladimir Putin

Last week: 2

It might appear that Putin’s kept things a bit more low-key than usual this week, but also, that’s exactly what he wants you to think. Doesn’t it seem like even Putin is like “God, be cool, Donnie. Don’t be so obvious,” at this at point? In seriousness, it’s starting to seem like these two, in some order, will be trading the top spots for the next four years... Or at least until the forthcoming nuclear winter finally brings an end to life as we know it, and more importantly, these Shadow President Power Rankings. (Plus, Steve Bannon could probably survive that, too.)

No. 3

Steve King

Last week: NR

The Iowa congressman spent the weekend spewing xenophobic bile, and later, um, clarified his comments by literally predicting a fucking race war. At first, this seemed startlingly out of place, like a Man in the High Castle viral marketing stunt gone wrong, but then you remembered that Steve King has always been like this, and that his brand of cheerful ethnonationalism is now basically official White House policy. One day, we will bounce our grandchildren on our knees and tell them what it was like when being an unapologetic racist was BAD in politics, and they’ll laugh politely and then go outside and talk in hushed tones about how grandpa is getting senile faster than they thought.

No. 4

Whoever He Randomly Ran Into on His Way to the Bathroom

Last week: NR

Donald Trump has this tendency to agree with whatever the last person who spoke to him said. This is because he is an easily impressionable dummy who wants to seem like he knows what he’s talking about, and an easy way to do that is to confidently pick between ideas your aides are presenting. It’s kind of like this scene:

Sean Hannity

Last week: LOL but also 😞

In any other universe, seeing an adult martial arts enthusiast yelling on TV about the need to purge the government of “deep state saboteurs” would be grounds for you to call 911 and report a Money Monster-style hostage situation in progress. This is Donald Trump’s America, though, and it sure looks like Sean Hannity’s nightly monologue on cable news triggered Trump’s sudden termination of 46 U.S. attorneys the next day.

Seb Gorka

Last week: NR

Let’s play a little game. I’m going to ask you a question, and you have to answer with the first thing that comes to your mind. What would you say if someone approaches you and asks if you belong to a Nazi-allied group? If your response isn’t immediately some variation of “No!” then you’re probably a Nazi. Also, you might be Seb Gorka, one of Trump’s top national security advisors, because that’s exactly what happened with him this week. The man is a huge voice in U.S. foreign policy, and answered “no comment” to a question about a report that he is a “lifelong member” of Vitézi Rend, a Nazi-supporting group. Great to know.

No. 7

Breitbart News

Last week: NR

It sure looks like the caps lock aficionados at Breitbart are turning on their former boss (that’s Steve Bannon) and the President (just kidding, that’s also Steve Bannon). Just think, in less than a years these guys went from running headlines like this to playing a legitimate role in maybe torpedoing Paul Ryan’s cuckservative healthcare reform bill. Inspiring stuff.

No. 8

Darren,* the Late-Night Chef at the White House

Last week: NR

Darren’s been working at the White House for years, and has always gotten rave reviews. But Trump? Trump’s picky. He likes his meat to be so well done that it’s hard enough for you to skip it across the reflecting pool. He also can’t quite master the Trump Tower taco bowl. But Donnie does call about “room service” (he can’t stop calling it “room service”) late at night, which means often Darren is the last person to have talked to Trump before bed, making him the 8th most powerful man in the country.

* May or may not be a real person.

No. 9

Jeff Sessions

Last week: 10

Another up-and-down week for Sessions, who is basically what would happen if you took Clint Eastwood’s racist character from Gran Torino and crossed him with Forrest Gump and the massive law enforcement powers of the United States Department of Justice. On the one hand, he appears poised to, at long last, take America’s disastrous War on Drugs to previously unattained heights of wasteful expenditures and discriminatory outcomes. On the other hand, another federal court put the administration’s precious Muslim ban in the trash. Maybe he’d be nicer if he just smoked weed like a normal person.

No. 11

Generic Twitter User with a Pepe the Frog Avatar

Last week: 9

Ah @DEPLORABLE_MAGA_MARY. Tough week for her. So it turns out she’d lose her healthcare under Trumpcare. You’d think that’d make her mad, but no, she still loves the President’s plan. For one thing, it improves on the name. Where it used to say “Obama” it now says “Trump.” That’s an upgrade in Mary’s book. Granted, Obamacare did take care of her prescription costs, and Trumpcare won’t, but she probably doesn’t need her heart medication, anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?

No. 11

Paul Ryan

Last week: 4

Man, it looked for a second there like Paul Ryan was going to quickly and smoothly come through on that gigantic tax cut for the rich health care reform bill about which he’s fantasized every night for the last six years. Then, the CBO estimated that a whopping 24 million Americans would lose insurance under Trumpcare, and the White House’s feckless press secretary stumbled through an incoherent pseudodefense of the plan, and Ryan got so desperate that he trotted out a shitty PowerPoint presentation and promptly turned himself into a meme. In 2017, it is political malpractice of the highest order to pose with a sign of any kind, and every single one of Paul Ryan’s staffers under 30 should be fired immediately for allowing their boss to self-immolate on national television like this.

Advertisement

No. 12

Donald Trump

Last week: 10

There is a 0.0 percent chance that Donald Trump knows any of the substantive details of the healthcare bill to which he has proudly attached his name. (Kidding, he hasn’t done this, probably because, again, there is no way he knows what’s in it.) (It’s hard to run things when you don’t know what those things are.) Also, are we really supposed to believe that Donald Trump was using quotation marks on “tapp (sic) my wires” purposely? Fuck no. He understands the intricacies of spelling and grammar as well as he understands his Trumpcare bill.

No. 13

Stephen Miller

Last week: 3

Pro tip: If you’re one of those leering goons who became a Republican because you just thought it was fun to get under people’s skin by saying horrible things about your high school classmates who look different than you, and you manage to improbably ride a wave of mainstream bigotry and nationalism all the way to a White House senior advisor position at the tender-yet-still-prematurely-balding age of 31, and, one fine day, you’re asked to go on TV and defend your boss’ Muslim ban, maybe don’t go bragging about how the revised Muslim ban will be the same as the first Muslim ban, lest the court ether you when it hands down the same result, too.

Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations.